Art from Uist

A recent series of oil paintings, focusing on the ambient landscape. This work included in an joint-exhibition with Uist artist Meg Rodger, held at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre, North Uist in January and February 2017.

I first got interested in art way back In 1981, when I watched the American born, Skye-based painter called Jon Scheuler painting during the Edinburgh Festival. He took over a gallery for a month and produced a series of his large cloud paintings live in front of an audience. 2016 was the centenary year of his birth and their have been exhibitions of his work throughout Scotland. It is nice to think that I’m responding in some small way with m own cloud-themed paintings for this exhibition (and I will even be taking my turn at some live painting!}

My paintings for this exhibition started out as skyscapes, but they gradually lost the horizon line and turned into a more expressive mixing of cloud and sea forms.

From my kitchen window, I look over the machair to one of Uist’s exhaustingly long horizons, bounding the deep sky.Here is a series of paintings of that sky. Small cross-sections, using an aerial perspective. Escapes into the dynamic chaos of clouds: masses without shape, forms without edges. The horizon becomes uncertain: waves become clouds, clouds become ocean. The viewer is folded into their churn. So the paintings look at one aspect of our ambient commons and its potential as a visual metaphor for self-other relationships.

I’ve also be including a more earthbound series of ink drawings, taking a more microscopic look at what lies beneath.